11/06/2009 @ 1:00PM

China's Got a New Number One

At a time when much of the world is worried that global economic recovery will trigger a widening of China’s trade gap and increase friction, the country’s richest man in our latest annual survey unexpectedly turns out to be a symbol of U.S.–China economic cooperation.

Wang Chuanfu’s wealth catapulted this year as it became clear that Beijing would go along with his plans to sell a 9.9% stake in BYD, his Hong Kong-listed rechargeable battery and auto manufacturing company, to Warren Buffett’s
MidAmerican Energy
.

The hope: BYD, which stands for “Build Your Dreams,” will emerge as a world leader in making electric cars, and Buffett will give him cachet in the U.S. and elsewhere. The reality: Wang, though basking in his Buffett deal and selling conventional sedans at a record pace of late in China, doesn’t yet have any electric models in commercial production. BYD’s stock has risen more than sixfold in the past seven months; its shares are trading at 97 times their 2008 earnings. Wang’s wealth has ballooned to $5.8 billion, compared with $1.06 billion a year ago.

Wang, like Buffett, is known for a down-to-earth style. He holds engineering degrees, shuns conferences and has been quietly building up a manufacturing business in which sales last year totaled $3.9 billion. BYD is based in Shenzhen, a boomtown that arose from farmland at the start of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. Today, remarkably, it’s home to nearly as many of the country’s richest as Beijing. After its stock run-up, BYD has three billionaires: Wang, Lu Xiangyang and Xia Zuoquan.

Ironically, cars have only this year become the biggest part of Wang’s sales mix. When FORBES visited him in 2004, we noted a sedan with “a tinny door that shuts when it feels like it.” As the global recession has hurt his longtime mainstays–batteries and handset components–Wang has gunned his car business. Revenues from autos soared by 133% in the first half of the year of 2009, to $1.3 billion, accounting for 55% of BYD’s sales, compared with a 31% share a year ago; net profits nearly doubled from a year earlier to $176 million. Though BYD is not yet a top-tier carmaker in China, local media now say Wang aspires to be the world’s largest. In an interview with FORBES CHINA in March Wang revealed ambitions in the solar energy field, too, saying he was interested in solar-powered batteries.

Why not? Hope’s been good to Wang, at least this year. Further down the road he will have to deliver those green breakthroughs in a crowded global field.